In light of BBC reports about the Romney campaign, which described the LDS Church as the fastest growing church, I thought it would be fun to quick check LDS exit rates according to the General Conference Statistical Report.
Table 1. Official Membership Statistics
Colluvium kindly shared his spreadsheet. Although I suspected inconsistencies, the results were so improbable that I had to replicate a part of Colluvium's data collection. The anomalies persisted.
From the Statistical Reports in the Ensign available at lds.org, I have compiled a spreadsheet that depicts the total number of Mormons, the number of births, and the number of convert baptisms by year between 1973 and 2005.
As the data has been copied and pasted, typos are unlikely. However, I would be grateful if someone would take it upon themself to double check. Please, blame me for any mistakes and report them.
Between 1988 and 1996, the Statistical Reports did not contain data about the births or blessings of children, which required the use of baptismal data instead.
Table 2. Calculating Exit Data
I calculated the exit data by adding the number of births and conversions to last year's membership number and subtracting this year's membership number. The subtraction ought to render the number of people that exited the LDS Church, which may include deaths and resignations.
Amazingly, a negative number of people left the LDS Church in 1975, 1989, 1990, and 1999. Assuming that not one single member died in 1999, for example, 8,456 Mormons rose from the dead to join the LDS Church.
Table 3. Highest to Lowest Exit Rate
The exit rate is the quotient of the number of exiting people and the member totals. Excluding the nonsensical negative data, the exit rate is as high as 2.48 exits in 1980 and as low .16% in 1991, a difference of almost 1,577 percent!
Table 4. Estimates Instead of Measurement
Clearly, this data is not reliable. Notice, between 1978 and 91 births and membership totals and between 1978 and 82 conversions were reported in thousands (zeros), which indicates that these figures are estimates.
The data also cannot dissuade the suspicion that only deaths but not resignations are reported as exits from Mormonism. The LDS Church did not allow for resignations until Norman Hancock settled his law suit in 1989.
Please, take a close look at the dates associated with the highest to lowest exit rates.
Table 5. Highest to Lowest Exit Rate, Again!
The higher exit rates date before 1989. Paradoxically, exit rates decline for the period when resignation becomes a possibility.
According to the CIA World Fact Book, the United States of America had a rate of 8.26 deaths per 1,000 residents. Since Mormons have larger families, especially in the past, it is probable that the Mormon death rate was substantially lower than the American average.
The CIA World Fact Book reports death rates of 4.74 and 2.58 per thousand for societies with more traditional family configurations such as Mexico or Saudi Arabia, respectively.
Table 6. Exit Rates Since 1989
Mormons might be traditional but they are not that traditional. If we ignore the nonsensical negative exit rates and focus on the time frame when resignation is an option, then the LDS exit rate is smaller than Mexico's death rate (.00474) in half the cases.
In 1991 and 1997, the Mormon exit rate is even smaller than Saudi Arabia's death rate of .00258.
Therefore it is implausible that the exit statistics deduced from annual LDS Statistical Reports include resignations.
These patterns create doubt about the capacity of the LDS Church to collect reliable data. It can neither contradict the findings of the CUNY Religious Identification Survey, which documents that the LDS Church is no longer growing in the United States, nor the findings of Mexican, Brazilian, and Chilean census collections, which indicate that LDS membership reports might overstate people's attachment to Mormonism.
When Mormon public relations officials content that the LDS Church grows the fastest, I am afraid that there are no facts that would support that claim.
Table 1. Official Membership Statistics
Colluvium kindly shared his spreadsheet. Although I suspected inconsistencies, the results were so improbable that I had to replicate a part of Colluvium's data collection. The anomalies persisted.
From the Statistical Reports in the Ensign available at lds.org, I have compiled a spreadsheet that depicts the total number of Mormons, the number of births, and the number of convert baptisms by year between 1973 and 2005.
As the data has been copied and pasted, typos are unlikely. However, I would be grateful if someone would take it upon themself to double check. Please, blame me for any mistakes and report them.
Between 1988 and 1996, the Statistical Reports did not contain data about the births or blessings of children, which required the use of baptismal data instead.
Table 2. Calculating Exit Data
I calculated the exit data by adding the number of births and conversions to last year's membership number and subtracting this year's membership number. The subtraction ought to render the number of people that exited the LDS Church, which may include deaths and resignations.
Amazingly, a negative number of people left the LDS Church in 1975, 1989, 1990, and 1999. Assuming that not one single member died in 1999, for example, 8,456 Mormons rose from the dead to join the LDS Church.
Table 3. Highest to Lowest Exit Rate
The exit rate is the quotient of the number of exiting people and the member totals. Excluding the nonsensical negative data, the exit rate is as high as 2.48 exits in 1980 and as low .16% in 1991, a difference of almost 1,577 percent!
Table 4. Estimates Instead of Measurement
Clearly, this data is not reliable. Notice, between 1978 and 91 births and membership totals and between 1978 and 82 conversions were reported in thousands (zeros), which indicates that these figures are estimates.
The data also cannot dissuade the suspicion that only deaths but not resignations are reported as exits from Mormonism. The LDS Church did not allow for resignations until Norman Hancock settled his law suit in 1989.
Please, take a close look at the dates associated with the highest to lowest exit rates.
Table 5. Highest to Lowest Exit Rate, Again!
The higher exit rates date before 1989. Paradoxically, exit rates decline for the period when resignation becomes a possibility.
According to the CIA World Fact Book, the United States of America had a rate of 8.26 deaths per 1,000 residents. Since Mormons have larger families, especially in the past, it is probable that the Mormon death rate was substantially lower than the American average.
The CIA World Fact Book reports death rates of 4.74 and 2.58 per thousand for societies with more traditional family configurations such as Mexico or Saudi Arabia, respectively.
Table 6. Exit Rates Since 1989
Mormons might be traditional but they are not that traditional. If we ignore the nonsensical negative exit rates and focus on the time frame when resignation is an option, then the LDS exit rate is smaller than Mexico's death rate (.00474) in half the cases.
In 1991 and 1997, the Mormon exit rate is even smaller than Saudi Arabia's death rate of .00258.
Therefore it is implausible that the exit statistics deduced from annual LDS Statistical Reports include resignations.
These patterns create doubt about the capacity of the LDS Church to collect reliable data. It can neither contradict the findings of the CUNY Religious Identification Survey, which documents that the LDS Church is no longer growing in the United States, nor the findings of Mexican, Brazilian, and Chilean census collections, which indicate that LDS membership reports might overstate people's attachment to Mormonism.
When Mormon public relations officials content that the LDS Church grows the fastest, I am afraid that there are no facts that would support that claim.